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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ON A PRINTER'S BEING SENT TO NEWGATE by JONATHAN SWIFT

First Line: BETTER WE ALL WERE IN OUR GRAVES
Last Line: AND, LIKE DOMITIAN, LEAP AT FLIES.
Subject(s): PRISONS & PRISONERS;
Better we all were in our graves
Than live in slavery to slaves,
Worse than the anarchy at sea,
Where fishes on each other prey;
Where every trout can make as high rants
O'er his inferiors as our tyrants;
And swagger while the coast is clear:
But should a lordly pike appear,
Away you see the varlet scud,
Or hide his coward snout in mud.
Thus, if a gudgeon meet a roach
He dare not venture to approach;
Yet still has impudence to rise,
And, like Domitian, leap at flies.




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